Sunday, October 28, 2012

When Spiders Go a Little Preppy...

I mean, really, who said spiders and spiderwebs have to be black & orange anyway?

This is the second year that kiddo has decided he's not going trick-or-treating. I miss Halloween costumes. I'll be honest, Mr. E made a lot of them. One of my favorites: a traffic light. He made it so the red and green lights really lit up and the yellow light could be pushed out from the inside to retrieve the candy. (Would it surprise you to know that Mr. E has an engineering degree?)

That same year, Martha Stewart asked readers to send in their best kid's costume pictures and it made it onto her website!!! Yes, kiddo is on Martha's website. You never know...it could be framed in her office, too. Or in her wallet. (Stranger things have happened.)

That picture was from 4th grade. Kiddo is now in 8th grade...and looks like this.
{{Hug your babies, you guys. Time flies.}}

I *do* love seeing the little ghouls & goblins come to the door for candy, though...and so does kiddo. Looks like we've moved from the trick-or-treating phase into the "opening-the-door-for-trick-or-treaters, eating-more-candy-than-we-give-away" phase. It's not all bad.

So, the cookies. I knew I wanted to make some spiderwebs. I wanted to use some different colors, but all I could visualize were black, orange, purple, green...black, orange, purple, green...black, orange, purple, green. Don't get me wrong, I like those colors. Then, it came to me in a flash of 80's nostalgia...preppy.

The cookies are super simple, and even though these are sprinkled with disco dust, you can totally leave that off. You can see I was having some issues deciding whether or not to dust...

One note about the navy color. I mixed AmeriColor Navy with AmeriColor Super Black. You'll want to bring the color to a deep blue, but it won't look navy until it dries. (You'll see from the how-to pictures how much the color deepens.)

Thin the base color icing with water, a bit at a time,
stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a
thick syrup. You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl
and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand
two." Four is too thick, one is too thin. Count of 2-3 is good. Cover
with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed. Pour into squeeze bottle.

Fill in the outline with the thinned flood icing, using a toothpick to guide to the edges and to pop large air bubbles.

Let the cookies dry for at least one hour.

Use a #2 tip to pipe a spiderweb outline in a contrasting color. Start from one corner, or from the top center.

Use a #5 tip to pipe a spider body and a #1 tip to pipe the legs.

Use a #15 star tip to pipe a border along the edge of the cookies, using a pulsing motion.

{This is one of the easiest ways to make your cookies look fancy. You'll need a fairly stiff icing to hold the design...I always test my icing on a plate first. If the ridges fall, just stir in some sifted powdered sugar.}

Let the cookies dry uncovered 6-8 hours, or overnight.

If desired, add the disco dust. Details on applying it are here. I used a very thin paintbrush to go over the web and legs of the spider.

After the dusted cookies have dried about 30 minutes or more, use a dry paintbrush to brush away the excess.

Let me live vicariously through you. What are your kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews going to be this Halloween?!?

Trust me, Spiders have been preppy for quite a long time...at least here at the University of Richmond. (Yes, our mascot is the Spider. Creepy, I agree.) For a second I thought you had actually made UR cookies, but then I sadly realized that was pink, not red. So close.

Adorable cookies. Might neeed to make some of those today. I know the feeling about the kids getting too old. I have one that has given up the costumes but one that still dresses up. She will be Effie Trinket from the Hunger Games. (I tried to paste a picture but it wouldn't work)

Those are gorgeous!!! And the title of your post made me run right over...I love it! :)

Our girlies are going to be monarch butterflies. They're 3 1/2, and I'm still choosing their costumes for them. I figure I'll be at their mercy for enough years in the future...I might as well enjoy it now! ;)

I love the preppy colors, and I agree with some of the other comments-I prefer cute over spooky. My munchkins like to dress with a theme together, so this year I have an 8 year old cat in the hat, things 1 & 2 are 7 & 5 years old, and the 3 month old is the fish. I hope I can get a great picture of them together!

My little man (2) is going as "Plex" from Yo Gabba Gabba. He's the robot character. We got the costume a while back and he's already so excited about it. He's a little young to take trick-or-treating still, so I think he'll help me pass out candy before he goes to bed.:)

I just LOVE the color combination! I also tend to turn to the black/orange/purple/green combo, I would have never thought to do something like this! And that traffic light costume is too cool! Awesome job, Mr. E! =)

There's just so much about this that I LOVE!First of all~Can you hear Doogan, Izzy and I up here in the Northwest? We are seriously squealing and doing a HAPPY KIDDO dance that Kiddo was featured on the Martha Stewart website! GET OUT!!!!!!!!! Totally awesome! How COOL~DUDE is Mr. E using his engineering skills to create a Halloween costume that freakin lights up!!!!!! How cool is it that the yellow sign goes out for candy! We can't take it! Just too incredible!Let's get to these cookies! I'm in LOVE with these colors! You would think we were neighbors considering we think alike so much of the time!How did you know I've been sewing bags with NAVY and PINK!!!!!!!!!! I mean seriously! There's a reason we're BESTIES!Love these colors!Preppy colors for Halloween = GENIUS! Happy Halloween Week from Bainbridge Island!xoxoxox

I am loving that I discovered your blog. And I am loving that we are both Houston foodies. My son just turned 16. It's been several years since he has gone Trick or Treating...and yes I do miss it! But, handing out candy is fun too...we just make sure that make ourselves sick with our own stash as a special treat to ourselves since he doesn't trick or treat anymore. He misses it though!

Oh, and I have the engineering husband over here too. I remember one Halloween he had the jigsaw power tools out so he could carve intricate pumpkin face designs with maximum efficiency! I. understand. Gotta love them.

These are so adorable! I don't have much cookie decorating experience, but I am going to try to channel your talents today and make your brown sugar and spice cookies, ice them and have my kiddos doodle on them with the food writing pens; a birthday gift for my husband! I am hoping my kiddos love Halloween for years to come ( they're 5 & 3 so I hope that's realistic). I, too, have an engineer husband and he helped me make an iPad costume for our 5 year old. My daughter dressed like Princess Presto from Super Why. I can't wait to see what they pick next year!Thank you for all of your incredible recipes/photos/tips!

I'm so glad that you mentioned about the icing drying darker. I would have probably had a melt down trying to get the icing that beautiful navy blue hue. I love these cookies with or without the sparkles!

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